{"id":4081,"date":"2012-05-14T12:00:34","date_gmt":"2012-05-14T12:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.qwoc.org\/?p=4081"},"modified":"2012-05-14T12:00:34","modified_gmt":"2012-05-14T12:00:34","slug":"the-lost-bois-transforming-queer-hip-hop-in-black-feminism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/test.qwoc.org\/?p=4081","title":{"rendered":"The Lost Bois: Transforming Queer Hip Hop through Black Feminism"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>[pullquote2 quotes=&#8221;true&#8221; align=&#8221;left&#8221;]We speak of queerness, of love, of politics not from a powerless position, but rather from a celebratory one. [\/pullquote2]<\/p>\n<p>Made up of the smooth vocal stylings of <strong>A.O. (Awkward Original)<\/strong> and <strong>B.Steady<\/strong>, the Lost Bois are kicking black feminist ass and taking names\u2014and probably a lot of phone numbers, too.<\/p>\n<p>On their\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/pages\/The-Lost-Bois\/200120236041\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a> page, The Lost Bois describe their music as \u201cqueer hip-hop for studs, bubbles, girlies, and weirdos of all kinds.\u201d The duo has been featured in Colorlines, Sass Magazine, and After Ellen, and has performed at numerous LGBT pride parades and celebrations across the United States. However, their favorite performance venues are smaller, and more intimate feel, where they can meet and share stories with other queer women of color.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Our music is a kind of hip-pop. We write, we sing, we speak for people like us: queers, dykes, black folks, brown folks, to dance, to fuck, to smile, laugh at and along with. Because really, when did it become a rule that queer folks could only make serious music? Above all, we want our music to be heard.&#8221;<\/p>\n<h5><strong>How It All Began<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/test.qwoc.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/The-Lost-Bois-IMG_6437.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright  wp-image-4110\" title=\"The+Lost+Bois+IMG_6437\" src=\"http:\/\/test.qwoc.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/05\/The-Lost-Bois-IMG_6437-300x199.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"240\" height=\"159\" \/><\/a>The two bois met in middle school at the awkward age of 12, sharing a love of music and a penchant for school jazz bands. Taking stylistic inspiration from Joni Mitchell, Stevie Wonder, and Sarah Vaughn, they write hip-hop and rap music that is revolutionary yet stylistically classic. In college, they formed an all-female queer rap trio, which they named The Q Crew.<\/p>\n<p>After A.O. and B.Steady\u2019s graduation in 2009, the two ladies formed a two-women group, determined to fight heteronormative, sexist mainstream culture by creating beautiful music with powerful lyrics that queers and straights, whites and blacks alike could relate to; music that lets marginalized community members know that they&#8217;re not alone, and that their struggles and triumphs matter.<\/p>\n<p>Not only do their controversial lyrics address issues with the contemporary mainstream music scene, but their spoken poetry also confronts racism and the erasure of women of color from mainstream queer culture.\u00a0Their music videos express this both satirically, and, sometimes, directly with songs such as \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=SruDVl6OaVk\" target=\"_blank\">The Race<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n<h5><strong>What&#8217;s In a Name<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>The group chose their name as a tribute to the literal lost boys from Never Never Land in <em>Peter Pan<\/em>. The idea of creating a home outside of home, one within the community of queer people of color, appealed to The Lost Bois. The children in <em>Peter Pan, <\/em>they said, were wacky and wild and even a bit anarchistic, yet they created a diverse, accepting family. The duo\u2019s choice of the word \u201cbois\u201d refers to their desire to play around and acknowledge a wide variety of gender identities.<\/p>\n<h5><strong>Now Playing<\/strong><\/h5>\n<p>B.Steady posts a new, original song weekly on her <a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/user\/QueerBGirl\" target=\"_blank\">YouTube blog<\/a>. She has also won two Paul Robeson awards, a prestigious honor from Howard University, for her aesthetically chilling music video, <em>Bones<\/em>. The song has an ethereal quality to it, juxtaposing a female African ancestor in chains, stowed in a ship, with a woman clad in white cloth, moving so lightly on her feet that she almost seems a ghost.<\/p>\n<p>But The Lost Bois\u2019 music is not all dark and political. They describe their song, \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=iWBw3q0iZTY\" target=\"_blank\">Sincerely<\/a>,\u201d as a \u201cqueer hip-pop tribute to being confident, to being silly, and to crushing hard.\u201d There&#8217;s something for everyone.<\/p>\n<p>[pullquote2]We write, we sing, we speak for people like us: queers, dykes, black folks, brown folks, to dance, to f*ck, to smile, laugh at and along with. Above all, we want our music to be heard.[\/pullquote2]<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s a taste of The Lost Bois, an award-winning song and music video, &#8220;Bones&#8221; from B. Steady:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Xlw9IxxBP7c\" frameborder=\"0\" width=\"400\" height=\"233\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong><em>The Lost Bois are transforming the queer music scene with powerful lyrics and hip, jazz-infused beats. Follow them at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.thelostbois.com\/\">www.thelostbois.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Trick Question: What do you get when you mix gender, queerness, hip hop, and black feminism? A.O, B. Steady, and a revolution that makes you want to sing, skip, and shimmy.  &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":4108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,102,36,71],"tags":[199,492,624,707,779,830,986],"class_list":["post-4081","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment-and-culture","category-feminism-special-series","category-music","category-music-videos","tag-b-steady","tag-hiphop","tag-lgbt","tag-music-2","tag-poc","tag-queer-women-of-color","tag-the-lost-bois"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/test.qwoc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4081","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/test.qwoc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/test.qwoc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/test.qwoc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/test.qwoc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4081"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/test.qwoc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4081\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/test.qwoc.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/test.qwoc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4081"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/test.qwoc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4081"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/test.qwoc.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4081"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}